- Author: Denise Godbout-Avant
Plants
If you have the space, plant an oak tree! While it will take several years for the tree to mature, few plants provide more benefits to nature than an oak tree. One Valley oak tree can provide food, water, and shelter to approximately 350 vertebrate species and over 250 species of insects and arachnids.
Choose plants that bloom at different times of the year, to ensure something is always blooming during the different seasons thus providing nectar sources year-round. Include some plants which produce berries to provide food sources attractive to birds and insects.
Lawns lack variety, thus reducing your lawn space and replacing it with native plants will increase the diversity in your garden. Decreasing the frequency of mowing permits grasses to grow taller, allowing flowers to grow and bloom which would attract bees and butterflies. You can also sprinkle some daisy and clover seeds into your lawn to provide forage plants and flowers for many beneficial insects.
Water
Ponds with aquatic-loving plants can encourage amphibians such as salamanders or toads, or wetland insects such as dragonflies, to visit and set up their homes.
Butterflies engage in behavior called “puddling,” where they stop in muddy puddles for water and nutrients. You can recreate this by filling a terra cotta saucer with soil and pebbles, sink it into the ground and keep it moist. Again, change the water regularly.
Plants and rocks around the water source(s) provide shelter, camouflage, and spots for creatures like butterflies, lizards, or turtles who like to sun themselves near water.
Housing for Bees
Leave the Leaves
Leaving leaves as they drop from your trees and bushes provides food and shelter for a variety of living creatures including worms, beetles, millipedes, larvae of some butterflies and moths, toads, frogs and more. These in turn attract birds, mammals, and amphibians that rely on the smaller organisms as a food source.
Chemicals
One Step at a Time
Changing your garden into a wildlife haven will likely be a step-by-step process over a period of time. Building a garden attractive to wildlife will bring you the enjoyment of watching them and the knowledge you are helping wildlife thrive.
Resources listed provide information for ways to you to build a garden attractive to wildlife.
- Butterflies in Your Garden: https://ucanr.edu/sites/CEStanislausCo/files/345791.pdf
- Sustainable Landscaping: https://ucanr.edu/sites/stancountymg/Sustainable_Landscaping/
- Trees in Your Garden: https://ucanr.edu/sites/CEStanislausCo/files/341553.pdf
- Pollinator-Friendly Native Plants Lists: https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/pollinator-friendly-plant-lists
- UC IPM Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/
- The Bee Gardener: The Cavities You Want to Have: https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=12785
- How to Make and Use Bee Houses for Cavity Nesting Bees: https://beegarden.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/How-to-build-and-use-bee-blocks.pdf
Denise Godbout-Avant has been a Stanislaus County Master Gardener since 2020.
[From the UC IPM Pests in the Landscape Blog]
IPM is a science-based, environmentally sound strategy that farmers, professionals, and residents can use to help prevent or control pests and their damage while at the same time protecting people, bees, beneficials, pets and the planet.
Are you already using IPM?
IPM uses a combination of methods including:
- Biological control -- 'good bugs' or beneficial organisms like spiders or parasites that eat or prey on other bugs;
- Physical control -- blocking the pest from getting to a plant or in your house. Squishing a pest. Pulling weeds out by hand.
- Cultural control -- changing the conditions favoring the pest such as reducing wet areas or fertilizing less
- Chemical control -- using a pesticide that controls the pest but is less toxic to other organisms and the environment. Pesticides are considered only when other methods have not been successful.
What are some IPM examples?
Pests such as ants, flies, cockroaches and mice. Prevent them from entering your home by sealing up cracks and crevices, using weather stripping on doors and windows, and repairing and replacing screens.
Monitor outdoor pests so you can decide whether or not take action. Some IPM tactics include spraying aphids off with a forceful stream of water, handpicking caterpillars, snails, and beetle pests, or using row covers to keep pests off your plants.
After reading this article, you may discover that you already practice IPM. To learn more about integrated pest management, visit the UC IPM website What is IPM? or visit the Home, garden turf and landscape pests web page for solutions to common pest problems.
- Author: Anne E Schellman
Just like humans, pests need food, water, and shelter to live. Unfortunately, we may unknowingly attract and even invite them to live in and around our homes!
Pest Attractors and Supporters
Some pests prefer to live outdoors, while others like the ambiance inside your garage or home. Here are some ways you may be providing pests with food, water, and shelter:
- Pet food and water bowls (indoors and outside)
- Bird feeders
- Leaking water spigots
- Open food packages in your kitchen
- Hedges and shrubs near doors or windows
Entry Points
Insect and animal pests can pass through small spaces. For example, mice can get through a hole the width of a pencil, and cockroaches can flatten themselves and squeeze through cracks. Here are some ways pests might be entering your home:
- Holes in windows and screen doors
- Cracks in the foundation of your house
- Holes in the roof or attic
- Crevices around pipes indoors (bathrooms, laundry area, kitchens) and outside
Use IPM to Manage Pests
Use integrated pest management or IPM to help you pest proof your home. First, walk in and around your home to inspect for the above pest attractors, and entry points. If you can't personally inspect your home or don't have time, you can call a pest control company and ask them to do it for you. This is helpful for hard to access places like basements and attics.
Follow directions on the Quick Tips cards below for common pests. If your pest isn't listed, check the UC IPM Website. If you find a pest you can't identify, contact the UCCE Master Gardeners of Stanislaus County at (209) 525-6800 or send an email to ucmgstanislaus@ucanr.edu.
Pantry Pests (pests found in the kitchen)
- Author: Anne E Schellman
Pests need food, water, and shelter to live. Unfortunately, some of us unknowingly attract and even invite pests to live in and around our homes!
Insect and animal pests can pass through small spaces. For example, mice can get through a hole the width of a pencil, and cockroaches can flatten themselves and squeeze through cracks. Here are some circumstances that attract pests, allow them access, and provide them with food, water, and shelter:
Pest Attractors and Supporters
- Pet food and water bowls (indoors and outside)
- Bird feeders
- Leaking water spigots
- Open food packages in your kitchen
- Hedges and shrubs near doors or windows
Entry Points
- Holes in windows and screen doors
- Cracks in the foundation of your house
- Holes in the roof or attic
- Crevices around pipes indoors (bathrooms, laundry area, kitchens) and outside
Use IPM to Manage Pests
Use integrated pest management or IPM to help you pest proof your home. First, walk in and around your home to inspect for the above pest attractors, supporters, and entry points. Once you find a pest, for help with identification contact the UCCE Master Gardeners of Stanislaus County at (209) 525-6800.
If you can't personally inspect your home or don't have time, you can call a pest control company and ask them to do it for you. This is helpful for hard to access places like basements and attics.
For Quick Tips on common pests and their management and prevention from the UC IPM website, click below.
Other Helpful Links
What is IPM?
UC IPM Website
Pest Notes Library
Stay in touch! Follow us on Facebook or Twitter @UCMGStanislaus
Who are the UCCE Master Gardeners?
UCCE Master Gardeners are residents in the community trained by University advisors and experts using science-based information. They take a weekly class for 6 months and learn about a variety of topics, including soils, horticulture, vegetable gardening, composting, fruit trees, and many more! After passing an exam, the trainees become certified UC Master Gardeners, ready to answer your questions about home gardening.
You may see the UCCE Master Gardeners at events such as farmer's markets, the library, the fair, or a school garden. They will also be at the UCCE office each week, available to answer your questions.
UCCE Master Gardener Focus
The UCCE Master Gardener Program plans to address local issues related to reducing green waste, conserving water, integrated pest management (IPM), and sustainable landscaping.
The first group of trainees will start their classes in January and finish in June, ready to volunteer. In the meantime, you can still bring your pest or gardening questions to the UCCE office at the Agricultural Center at 3800 Cornucopia Way, Suite A in Modesto. Or call (209) 525-6800. The office is open M-F 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Blog Focus
Posts for this blog will include seasonal gardening tips, posts on how to solve pest problems, and notices for events featuring the UCCE Master Gardeners.
Interested in Becoming a UCCE Master Gardener?
Visit https://ucanr.edu/sites/stancountymg/ to read about the program in detail. Our next class will start in January of 2020. Click on the big yellow button to fill out a survey to be contacted when sign ups for the class are available.
